High-Speed Rail as a Climate Strategy

Many commercial passenger flights in the United States consists of relatively short flights between 100 and 500 miles, distances that could easily be covered by the more environmentally friendly alternative of high-speed train service.

In 2006, CNT partnered with the Center for Clean Air Policy to release a study of the feasibility of high-speed rail service between major urban transit corridors in the United States, concluding that a full network of high-speed trains could save as much as 6 billion pounds of Carbon Dioxide per year. The result was a corridor-by-corridor estimate of the potential annual greenhouse gas benefits (from emissions reductions) of high-speed rail systems in the U.S. based on current plans for high-speed rail development in the federally designated high-speed rail corridors.